2000年廣東省專插本英語真題

Part I Reading Comprehension(40%)

Passage One

The man of Many Secrets -- Harry Houdini -- was one of the greatest American entertainers in the theater this was a man famous for his escapes-from prison cells,from wooden boxes floating in rivers,from locked tanks full of appeared in theaters all over Europe and ds came to see the great Houdini and his “magic” tricks.

Of course,his secret was not magic,or supernatural was simply had the ability to move his toes as well as he moved his could move his body into almost any position he wanted.

Houdini started working in the entertainment world when he was 17,in and his brother Theo performed card tricks in a club in New called themselves the Houdini Harry married in 1894,he and his wife Bess worked together as magician and for a long time they were not very Harry performed his first prison escape,in Chicago in y persuaded a detective to let him try to escape from the prison,and he invited the local newspapermen to watch.

It was the publicity that came from this that started Harry Houdini’s y had fingers trained to escape from handcuffs and toes trained to escape from ankle his biggest secret was how he unlocked the prison y time he went into the prison cell,Bess gave him a kiss for good luck-and a small skeleton key,which is a key that fits many locks,passed quickly from her mouth to his.

Harry used these prison escapes to build his fame,He arranged to escape from the local jail of every town he the afternoon,the people of the town would read about it in their local newspapers,and in the evening every seat in the local theater would be was the result?World--wide fame,and a name remembered today.

rding to the passage,Houdini’s success in prison escapes depends on______.

magic tricks and unhuman special tricks and a skeleton key

unusal ability and a skeleton unhuman talents and magic tricks

the fourth word “this”refers to______.

previous publicity

place, time,1898

rding to the passage,how did Houdini get the key which helped him unlock prison doors?

took the key from his wife’s mouth.

wife passed it to his hand while kissing him.

wife gave it to him by a magic trick.

got it in his mouth through a kiss by his wife.

can be inferred from the passage that Houdini became famous______.

he was about he was about 17

r the year re the year 1898

rding to the passage,which of the following statements is true?

ini used to be a famous magician in the U.S.A.

ini was first recognized widely in Chicago.

ini entered the entertainment world together with his wife.

ini owned his great success to his small skeleton key.

Passage Two

Children learn almost nothing from televison,and the more they watch the less they regard television purely as entertainment ,resent programs that demand on them and are surprised that anybody should take the medium from being over--excited by programs,they are mildly bored with the whole e are the main conclusions from a new study of children and author--Cardiac Cullingford confirms that the modern child is an interested study suggests that there is little point in the later than a third of the children regularly watch their favorite programs after 9 11 year-olds have watched programs after midnight.

Apart from the obvious waste of time involved,it seems that all this viewing has little dren don’t pay close attention,says Cullingford,and they can recall few can remember exactly which programs they have seen but they can rarely explain the elements of a particular ll was in “reverse proportion to the amount they had watched” is precisely because television,unlike a teacher,demands so little attention and response that children like it,argues rams seeking to put over serious messages are strongly are people who frequently talk on children like most,and remember best,are the see them as short programs in their own right and particularly enjoy humourous again,they react strongly against high-pressure advertisement that attempt openly to influence them.

On the other hand,they are not emotionally involved in the they admire the stars,it is because the actors lead better lives and earn a lot of money,not because of their fictional skills with fast cars and shooting are perfectly clear about the functions of advertisements;by the age of 12,only one in 10 children believes what even favorite ads say about the says Cullingford,educational television is probably least successful of all in imparting(傳播)attitudes or information.

study of children and television shows that______.

is useless for television companies to delay adult viewing to the later hours.

is a waste of time for children to watch adults programs on TV.

dren should not watch television programs late into the night.

dren are supposed to learn a lot from television programs.

7.“Recall was in reverse proportion to the amount they had watched”(paragraph 2) has almost the same meaning as ______.

A.“the more they watch the less they remember”.(paragraph 1)

B.“Programs seeking to put over serious messages are strongly disliked”(paragraph 2)

C.“They see them as short programs in their own right”.(paragraph 2)

D.“educational television is probably least successful of all in imparting attitudes or information”.(paragraph 3)

h of the following is NOT true according to the new study of children and televison?

children stay up late to watch the programs they like.

dren enjoy watching challenging programs.

dren don’t like serious messages and high-pressured ads.

gh children like watching ads,most of them don’t believe what ads says about the product.

ingford concludes that______.

dren are excited when they watch TV

hing TV has little real effect on children

nts should spend less time watching TV

nts should be worried about the effect of TV on children

would the result of the new study upset?

children viewers.

movie educators.

Passage Three

Agricultural pets are winning the battle against the poisonous chemicals in each new chemical pesticide is used,the insects or rodents gradually become used to pests change themsleves so that they are not killed by the efore,farmers,scientists,and food planners are trying a new method to control the pests that attack their method is called Integrated Pest Management,or IPM.

Integrated pest management is a plan that combines several different methods to destroy insects and e methods are specifically developed for individual areas and control methods include using the pests’natural enemies,controlling the pests’ breading environment,and developing stronger strains of ical poisons are used only when IPM method accepts the fact that it is useless to try to destroy pests completely with chemical aim is to control pest populations so that crops can still grow well.

Cotton farmers in Texas have been using the IPM farmers find the best combination of control methods for their this way,they can produce crops without using too many chemical 1977,three quarters of Texas cotton fields received no insecticides at year’s cotton crop was better than IPM method showed the farmers a better way to control the pests in their fields.

The United Nations Environment Program(UNEP) has been studying agricultural pests and has found that 223 pests are resistant to,or not affected by nts,including rats,are also gaining resistance to 1965,another UN organization,the UN Food Agricultural Organization,list 182 resistant types of e years later,there were 228 species on the resistant 1977 survey raised the number to 364 species,it is necessary to find another method of using Integrated Pest Management,farmers can still control and limit pests without depending on chemical poison.

cultural pests are______.

killed by the poison dly being destroyed by chemical poisons

ming used to poisons grated Pest Management

is a method that______.

the pests’ natural enemies rols the pests’ breading environment

lops stronger strains of seeds all of the above

is different from the traditional method because______.

ical poisons are often used ical poisons are used when necessary

ical poisons are completely useless ers do not have to worry about pests

cotton crop in Taxas in 1977______.

smaller than better than average

ived no insecticieds at ived more insecticides than usual

rding to this passage,in the future,chemical pesticides will probably______.

used be used at all

be more popular

Passage Four

Before the widespread use of computers,managers could not make full use of large amounts of valuable information about a company’s information either reached managers too late or was too expensive to be y,managers are facing a wide range of data processing and information place of a few financial controls,managers can draw on computer-based information systems to control activities in every area of their any kinds of performance measures,the information provided by these systems helps managers compare standards with actual results,find out problems,and take corrective action before it is too late to make changes.

The introduction of computerized information systems has sharply changed management control in many a neighbourhood shopkeeper may now use computers to control sales,billing,and other large companies,electronic data processing systems monitor entire projects and sets of operations.

Now,there are about 24 million microcomputers in use in the United States-one for every 10 is estimated that by 1966,61 percent of American managers will be using some sort of electronic work order for managers to be sure that the computer-based information they are receiving is accurate,they need to understand how computers ver,in most cases they do not need to learn how to program er ,managers should understand how computerized information systems work;how they are developed;their limitations and costs;and the manner in which information systems may be an understanding is not difficult to achieve.

One reserch found that business firms were more successful in teaching basic information about computers to business graduates than they were in teaching business subjects to computer science graduates.

couldn’t managers make full use of valuable information about a company’s activities before the widespread use of computers?

use it often took them a lot time to get it .

use they had to spend a lot of money buying it.

use it didn’t reach them in time.

er B or C.

rding to the passage,computer-based information helps mangers______.

are standards with expected results out problems in their company

rol activities of their company le daily affairs